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Book meme
From the lovely and talented Harini, a book meme:
Number of books in my collection: Maybe a hundred or so. I tend to give them away when I'm finished.
Last book bought: Moneyball, by Michael Lewis.
Last read: Just finishing up Where the Right Went Wrong by Pat Buchanan. Buchanan holds liberal views on foreign and trade policy, and makes mincemeat of the neo-con taste for Democratizing the Arab world. But he's a mouth-breathing wingnut on social issues. A challenging book for anyone who still thinks in terms of "right" and "left", which makes the title somewhat ironic, don't ya think?
Five books that mean a lot to me:
A Canticle for Liebowitz, by Howard Miller. Probably because I don't read that much science fiction anymore, and this is such a classic of the genre. More that just a post-apocalyptic tale of human politics, greed, and corruption, Miller's story is planted firmly at the intersection of science and morality, with enough Catholic doctrine to suspend disbelief. A great read.
All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Remarque. One of our family rituals growing up was to walk to the bookmobile, which appeared magically in the parking lot at the Cork Lane Shopping Center every Monday night. When I was 11 or so, I checked out Remarque's novel, my first "adult" book. The Vietnam was was raging then, and I was just old enough to be hip to the undercurrent of youthful rage against Nixon, the war, and American society in general. This book fueled the rage then, and does the job now.
Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson. I could go on and on about this little gem. In fact I did, nearly 100 pages worth in my master's thesis at Marquette University. Carson's seminal work signalled a sea change on how the press, and then the public, viewed corporate America's chemical war on nature. But this is far from a tree-hugger's manifesto. There's nothing shrill or unreasonable about this book, and Carson relies more on science, rather than just emotion to make her point.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or anything else by Mark Twain. If you want to understand America, read Twain. I don't mean the gauzy, evangelical George W. Bush America. I mean the America of common sense, and courage, and folk wisdom that pours out of every little town and big city in America. If I was George W. Bush, I'd burn Twain's books.
Man's Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl. Frankl spent five years in one of Hitler's death camps, and he uses that experience, plus a first rate intellect, to fashion a philosophy of living that optimistic and realistic at the same time. No small feat in the modern world.
And now I pass to torch to Blogenlust, Doc Saaron; Folkbum, Dave's Blog, and 201K.
3.6.05 23:24
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john / Website (4.6.05 04:51) A Canticle for Liebowitz, by Howard Miller I love that book, too. What if we're living that? |